Sunday, August 28, 2005

Hamas on Saturday released a rare videotape of a man it said is the bombmaker pursued by Israeli security forces for more than a decade.

The man, identifying himself as fugitive Mohammed Deif, described Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance, rejected calls for his group to disarm, and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state is erased from the map.

"You are leaving Gaza today in shame," he said. "Today you are leaving hell. But we promise you that tomorrow all Palestine will be hell for you, God willing."

Israeli officials on Saturday urged the Palestinian Authority to crack down on Hamas after the Islamic group released a videotape of a top bombmaker who has eluded Israeli forces for more than a decade.

In the video, the man, identifying himself as Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, described Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance, rejected calls for his group to disarm, and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state is erased from the map.

Now, this is absurd. How is the Palestinian Authority supposed to crack down on the opposition party in the Palestinian Parliament? To do so would be to violate their own constitution. Hamas is an elected body. The Palestinian Authority (as represented by Abbas' Fatah Party) could enact law against them, but until they did, Hamas' policies are the policies of Palestine.

If Israel does not recognize this, they are in trouble. And, I must say, I am disappointed that a member of the Sharon government would be so stupid as to believe that the PA is going to do anything about Hamas.

Israel has to make a decision at this juncture. They have to declare the Palestinian state, and say that any further attacks will be met with all-out war. This is, as Charles Johnson always says, a farce.

“Our position regarding the West Bank and east Jerusalem is identical - they are occupied territories, and the future of Jerusalem will also be discussed in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,” Mr. Otte told Al-Quds, a Jerusalem-based Arabic-language newspaper.

Otte dismissed statements by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Israel will retain large blocs of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria in any permanent arrangement with the Palestinian Authority. Such commitments, the European Union envoy asserted, are nothing more than “spin” intended for internal Israeli consumption.

The EU also does not take seriously Israel’s demand that the PA fulfill its commitments to disarm Arab terrorist groups. According to the Al-Quds interview, Mr. Otte said the EU does not demand that the PA confront terrorist groups militarily, or that the PA initiate a civil war in order to carry out its obligations.

In June, Mr. Otte defended European Union contacts with Hamas representatives, despite the organization being listed as a terrorist organization in EU countries, by saying that “if they are duly elected in free and fair elections under international supervision, you have to know what to do with elected representatives.”

So, according to the EU envoy to the Middle East, Mark Otte, Israel is supposed to give up part of Jerusalem without the Palestinian Authority having even met the first condition of the Road Map to Peace, which calls for the dismantlement of terrorist organizations.

This goes to prove what my man Someguy, over at Mystery Achievement says, that the cause of a Palestinian Homeland is the continuation of the Holocaust, by other means.

If Europe is going to quit insisting that the Palestinians dismantle terrorist organizations, and the Palestinians do not do it themselves (which they won't, of course), then CUANAS will cease to believe in a two-state solution.

Instead, our position will be that the only solution to the problem will be all-out war. And it will need to be a war of the kind the United States waged against Germany and Japan in World War II. It will need to be a war which destroys the existing army and government of Palestine, and thoroughly humiliates and discredits the ideology of the PLO.

The aftermath of the war will have to include completely restructuring and re-education of the entirety of the Palestinian populace. All Jihadi, and anti-Israel, and anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish (there all the same thing, by the way) ideology will have to be thoroughly eliminated, just as the Americans eliminated Nazi ideology from Germany after World War II.

In addition, all members of Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad, will have to be tried on War Crimes Charges.

Israel can not be expected to live beside an enemy, which foments racist propaganda against her people, and attacks her militarily on a regular basis. To expect Israel to continue to have it's citizens killed in unanswered attacks by the Palestinian military is immoral. And, as such, it is not a position which a Christian organization could take.